Account balance and other information for accounts held by an account owner are often needed by third parties for various reasons. For example, when applying for a mortgage, an applicant is typically required to provide information on all of the applicant's accounts to ensure there is sufficient cash attributable to the applicant (e.g., to use as a down payment). As another example, when applying for government benefits, such as supplemental security income (SSI) or other cash or services programs, a beneficiary's accounts must be located to ensure available assets have not been illegally transferred or do not otherwise exceed any qualification amount limits.
Searching for and verifying account balances can be difficult and time consuming. For example, in the case of a mortgage application, where an applicant has a number of accounts at different banks or other institutions (as used herein, “institutions” may include any type of financial service organizations, such as banks, credit unions, third-party payment services such as PayPal or the like, online banking services, online virtual money account systems, investment firms, brokerages, credit card companies, loan companies, check cashing services, payday loan services, government institutions, or any other entity providing financial services or information), verifying account balances may involve sending written requests to a number of different institutions, and each institution conducting a manual look-up for each specified account. Further, the applicant may not have complete account numbers or may not remember or provide information on all accounts. Even if the applicant has account numbers, the applicant may not provide the correct bank name or ID (such as a routing and transit number) to enable convenient and timely verification. In other cases, when the applicant has all the necessary account information, and even if a current balance has been confirmed by a bank, that balance may not be legitimate. That is, an applicant may have received or borrowed funds from another person (such as a relative) to temporarily show an account balance larger than what is actually owned by the account holder, to fraudulently qualify for a mortgage, loan, or government benefit.
In the case of an application for government benefits, an applicant may not disclose accounts, or income reflected in those accounts that would result in disqualification under the benefits program, or may have made transfers out of accounts to conceal assets.
Further, government and law enforcement agencies may from time to time have need to execute and serve subpoenas or National Security Letters (“NSLs”) pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2709 (or other applicable statutes) to institutions to gain access to financial accounts or information for individuals or entities (such as corporations) named in such subpoenas. However, it is time consuming and expensive for such government and law enforcement agencies to locate which institutions may have information regarding an individual or entity named in a subpoena, and the institutions waste significant resources and expense responding to such subpoenas especially when there is no account or financial information for the named individual or entity that is accessible by the particular institution. The problem is magnified by the current approach of law enforcement to take a “shotgun” approach by delivering subpoenas or NSLs to a large number of major institutions in an attempt to find any applicable accounts for a person or entity of investigatory interest.
Thus, there is a need for systems and methods to locate, verify and/or access account information, especially for accounts that are maintained across a number of different institutions.